Jesus told the parable of the soils and said that the word of God is what is sown into the world. He reminds us that some of the seed fell among thorns which he says, is those who hear the word for a time, “but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word and it proves unfruitful.” Mark 4:19 I believe that this is an apt description of our time.
This past year, we had the opportunity to host a team of prayer warriors from South Korea. They came because they are burdened for the spiritual state of our nation. As they looked over our community they saw idolatry and in our churches they saw a dryness. I believe that this is the case because we have so much. The prophet Jeremiah says, “for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13)” If there is idolatry in the streets it is because there is idolatry in the church. So many churches will say that everything is good because our building is paid for, our bills are paid, and we have money in the bank. We trust our resources and our money but we are seeing nothing happen in our churches that can only be explained by the power and presence of God.
Revival will come to our land when the church repents of our trust in the deceitfulness of riches and our desires for other things. This revival will begin when each Christian begins to look at themselves and see how each of us trusts our riches and how much we desire other things. As we begin a new year, let us pray for a great movement of God to sweep through our lives and churches so that there will be an awakening in our community.